Probabilistic Linkage of Police and Emergency Department Sources of Information on Motor-Vehicle Injury Cases: a Proposal for Improvement

Data on traffic injury cases that includes both the crash circumstances and the health outcome is a key tool for creating appropriate motor-vehicle injury prevention policies. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of the probabilistic linkage of police and emergency department data relating to motor-vehicle injury cases in Barcelona. A probabilistic linkage process was performed using local police reports (n = l2,481) and hospital emergency department data (n = 16,733) for all traffic injury cases that occurred in 1997. In almost two out of every three matched pairs for the injured person, at least five of the seven variables coincided, and in 7.3% of the cases all variables coincided. This work has allowed the empirical development of combined methods for the linkage of police and healthcare sources of information at the local level, which are the preliminary steps towards the construction of a data base that would include full information on the circumstances and the consequences of motor-vehicle crashes.